The early years of 3D gaming were hugely revolutionary, in fact there’s arguably never been a time in gaming as experimental or with greater technological leaps than the late 90’s and early 00’s. This was a time where developers were either throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck (and using that knowledge to make their next game better), or picking one thing and running with it so hard that the game would become known for doing that one specific thing extremely well. This was also a time before the leap to HD, so development times were reasonably short and the risk/reward window, especially within the AAA market was much wider, allowing developers to take bigger risks with their big budget titles and not fear bankruptcy.
After popularising the First-Person Shooter genre in 1993 with DOOM, id Software had released one sequel (DOOM II: Hell on Earth), a series of expansion packs for both games (Master Levels, Ultimate DOOM, and Final DOOM), and a spin-off, DOOM 64, for the Nintendo 64 all by 1997. By the time that Final DOOM was rolled out in 1996 critics were slamming id for their lack of innovation on the series. Whilst DOOM 64 was certainly welcomed in the console space it didn’t take long to be vastly outperformed by Rare’s GoldenEye 64 which released just four months later.
With the release of Valve’s revolutionary shooter Half-Life in 1998, what PC players in particular wanted from shooters had drastically changed from what id had been offering with DOOM and later with Quake, and so the company needed to adapt or die. In June of 2000, co-creator of the original DOOM, John Carmack, informed the company that their next project would be a remake of the original DOOM utilising modern hardware and the in-development id Tech 4 Engine. Four years later DOOM 3 released to critical acclaim, however, much like DOOM 64 before it, just three months later Valve would release Half-Life 2 and once again revolutionise the FPS genre, and opinion of DOOM 3 quickly shifted from glowing to sour. Nearly twenty years later, and with the success of the rebooted DOOM franchise, I take a look back at DOOM 3 to determine whether the game is deserving of the criticism it often faces, or whether it’s just a simple case of releasing at the wrong time.
After popularising the First-Person Shooter genre in 1993 with DOOM, id Software had released one sequel (DOOM II: Hell on Earth), a series of expansion packs for both games (Master Levels, Ultimate DOOM, and Final DOOM), and a spin-off, DOOM 64, for the Nintendo 64 all by 1997. By the time that Final DOOM was rolled out in 1996 critics were slamming id for their lack of innovation on the series. Whilst DOOM 64 was certainly welcomed in the console space it didn’t take long to be vastly outperformed by Rare’s GoldenEye 64 which released just four months later.
With the release of Valve’s revolutionary shooter Half-Life in 1998, what PC players in particular wanted from shooters had drastically changed from what id had been offering with DOOM and later with Quake, and so the company needed to adapt or die. In June of 2000, co-creator of the original DOOM, John Carmack, informed the company that their next project would be a remake of the original DOOM utilising modern hardware and the in-development id Tech 4 Engine. Four years later DOOM 3 released to critical acclaim, however, much like DOOM 64 before it, just three months later Valve would release Half-Life 2 and once again revolutionise the FPS genre, and opinion of DOOM 3 quickly shifted from glowing to sour. Nearly twenty years later, and with the success of the rebooted DOOM franchise, I take a look back at DOOM 3 to determine whether the game is deserving of the criticism it often faces, or whether it’s just a simple case of releasing at the wrong time.
The year is 2145 and the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) is the largest corporate entity in existence. Having set up a scientific research facility on Mars, many employees have been reporting poor mental heath conditions as well as hearing strange noises, and even reports of unprompted violent outbursts. Sent in to investigate are UAC board member Elliott Swann, bodyguard Jack Campbell, and you, a nameless marine. It is soon discovered that the facility director, Dr. Malcom Betruger has been experimenting with teleportation technology and has opened a portal to Hell, this causes the facility to be flooded with bloodthirsty demons and many of the crew members to become violently possessed. It’s up to you to put a stop to Betruger’s plan, warn Earth, and close the portal to Hell.
Where all the DOOM games prior to 3 were just about brutally killing any demons you saw for the sake of entertainment, DOOM 3 is considerably more grim in its tone and presentation. Really leaning into the horror of being isolated on a space station with literal demons that have either brutally murdered the crew or possessed them and turned them against you. Whilst DOOM 3 doesn’t go quite as far as the likes of System Shock 2 with its horror, it’s clear where the game drew its inspiration from. It’s no longer about slaughtering demons to heavy metal, it’s about strategically trying to survive against overwhelming odds.
The story is for the most part just set dressing for the gameplay. It’s definitely there and the game does flesh out its narrative with audio and text logs scattered around for you to collect, but it never becomes too intrusive. Much like Half-Life, if you choose to engage with the story then it’s prevalence will be known to you, but if you just want to play the game then the story won’t get in your way beyond communicating objectives to you. If you do choose to fully engage with it then you’ll be treated to some real gems of sci-fi horror that games like Dead Space would expand upon in the near future, however I wouldn’t say the story is as memorable as something like Dead Space or System Shock 2.
Where all the DOOM games prior to 3 were just about brutally killing any demons you saw for the sake of entertainment, DOOM 3 is considerably more grim in its tone and presentation. Really leaning into the horror of being isolated on a space station with literal demons that have either brutally murdered the crew or possessed them and turned them against you. Whilst DOOM 3 doesn’t go quite as far as the likes of System Shock 2 with its horror, it’s clear where the game drew its inspiration from. It’s no longer about slaughtering demons to heavy metal, it’s about strategically trying to survive against overwhelming odds.
The story is for the most part just set dressing for the gameplay. It’s definitely there and the game does flesh out its narrative with audio and text logs scattered around for you to collect, but it never becomes too intrusive. Much like Half-Life, if you choose to engage with the story then it’s prevalence will be known to you, but if you just want to play the game then the story won’t get in your way beyond communicating objectives to you. If you do choose to fully engage with it then you’ll be treated to some real gems of sci-fi horror that games like Dead Space would expand upon in the near future, however I wouldn’t say the story is as memorable as something like Dead Space or System Shock 2.
DOOM 3 was primarily marketed to show off the id Tech 4 Engine, and to call it a tech demo would be a huge disservice to how good the game actually is, but even within the first thirty minutes of the game it’s clear as day that this is a DOOM game helmed by John Carmack, and he wants you to see all the cool things the new engine can do before you even get a gun. For the first two chapters you’ll explore the Mars research facility, talk to the crew, interact with computers and PDA’s, play a few games of Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3, and see the revolutionary new lighting effects get put to good use with plenty of flickering lightbulbs and shadow casting level geometry. I’ll always remember a screenshot I saw of DOOM 3 when I was younger, which featured the half cybernetic dog monster thing in a blood-stained bathroom. Despite finding the image slightly disturbing as an eight-year-old, I’ll always remember it because of how great the lighting looked, far beyond the capabilities of anything else at the time. The way the fluorescent tube on the ceiling reacted differently to the white tiles, the blue tiles, the blood, and the mirror on the wall, and just being stunned at how good the game looked on the whole.
DOOM 3 is a game that relishes in plunging you into darkness, and I don’t mean the game just being a bit dim, I mean absolute blackout. In the original version of the game the flashlight couldn’t be equipped at the same time as a weapon, meaning you needed to choose between being able to see your environment or shoot your assailants, and that is truly terrifying. In the 2012 remaster of the game, the BFG Edition (which I played for this review), the flashlight is mounted to your armour and can be used at any time. On one hand I feel like this does take away a huge element of the original game, but at the same time I can completely understand the frustration that many felt in 2004 when, especially in the latter sections of the game, you’re in darkness far more often than not and your foes are considerably stronger and far more numerous.
I also mentioned earlier that DOOM 3 has you interacting with computers and PDA’s a lot. An interesting feature of the id Tech 4 Engine is that in order to try and increase player immersion there is no use key. This means that any electronic displays you need to interact with in DOOM 3 require you to take control of a cursor on the display and move it around to the option you want. It’s a really cool feature and unique to Doom 3, Quake 4, and 2006’s Prey. It’s surprising just how many of these computers are dotted around the Mars facility, even though the majority of them serve no actual purpose. You could try and back up all the research on the machines if you so wished, or you could just ignore the majority of them entirely. There’s rarely a reward for doing it, just your own satisfaction in interacting with the world in a way that most games would never allow you to. Your PDA is carried with you at all times and is where you can see objective updates, as well as view information downloaded from other PDA’s scattered around the environment. Sometimes it’ll unlock a previously inaccessible door, maybe an email will give you a combination to a weapons locker, or maybe it’ll just contain insane ramblings of a scientist losing their minds to the possession…each one is unique and tells the human story of DOOM 3 in the same way that System Shock 2 and eventually Bioshock would with their audio logs.
The one area of DOOM 3 that didn’t hold up quite so well visually, even shortly after release, was in the facial animations of NPC’s. To quote videogame critic Noah Caldwell-Gervais “everyone looks like a rubber mask stretched over a mannequin”, and he’s certainly not wrong. In comparison to its contemporaries DOOM 3 does look pretty good, but as I mentioned earlier, Half-Life 2 was just around the corner and that revolutionised character modelling and animation (as well as just about everything else) and from that point on DOOM 3’s NPC’s just looked kind of off. This example of Half-Life 2 doing the facial animations better can be applied to almost anything attempted in DOOM 3 (apart from maybe the lighting), it truly feels like the last gasp of a forgotten era before something new came along to jazz things up a bit…but in reality DOOM 3 was trying to be that revolutionary game that Half-Life 2 was and it didn’t quite make the cut once the dust had settled. Had it released a year or even another three months earlier then it likely would have been a different story entirely.
DOOM 3 is a game that relishes in plunging you into darkness, and I don’t mean the game just being a bit dim, I mean absolute blackout. In the original version of the game the flashlight couldn’t be equipped at the same time as a weapon, meaning you needed to choose between being able to see your environment or shoot your assailants, and that is truly terrifying. In the 2012 remaster of the game, the BFG Edition (which I played for this review), the flashlight is mounted to your armour and can be used at any time. On one hand I feel like this does take away a huge element of the original game, but at the same time I can completely understand the frustration that many felt in 2004 when, especially in the latter sections of the game, you’re in darkness far more often than not and your foes are considerably stronger and far more numerous.
I also mentioned earlier that DOOM 3 has you interacting with computers and PDA’s a lot. An interesting feature of the id Tech 4 Engine is that in order to try and increase player immersion there is no use key. This means that any electronic displays you need to interact with in DOOM 3 require you to take control of a cursor on the display and move it around to the option you want. It’s a really cool feature and unique to Doom 3, Quake 4, and 2006’s Prey. It’s surprising just how many of these computers are dotted around the Mars facility, even though the majority of them serve no actual purpose. You could try and back up all the research on the machines if you so wished, or you could just ignore the majority of them entirely. There’s rarely a reward for doing it, just your own satisfaction in interacting with the world in a way that most games would never allow you to. Your PDA is carried with you at all times and is where you can see objective updates, as well as view information downloaded from other PDA’s scattered around the environment. Sometimes it’ll unlock a previously inaccessible door, maybe an email will give you a combination to a weapons locker, or maybe it’ll just contain insane ramblings of a scientist losing their minds to the possession…each one is unique and tells the human story of DOOM 3 in the same way that System Shock 2 and eventually Bioshock would with their audio logs.
The one area of DOOM 3 that didn’t hold up quite so well visually, even shortly after release, was in the facial animations of NPC’s. To quote videogame critic Noah Caldwell-Gervais “everyone looks like a rubber mask stretched over a mannequin”, and he’s certainly not wrong. In comparison to its contemporaries DOOM 3 does look pretty good, but as I mentioned earlier, Half-Life 2 was just around the corner and that revolutionised character modelling and animation (as well as just about everything else) and from that point on DOOM 3’s NPC’s just looked kind of off. This example of Half-Life 2 doing the facial animations better can be applied to almost anything attempted in DOOM 3 (apart from maybe the lighting), it truly feels like the last gasp of a forgotten era before something new came along to jazz things up a bit…but in reality DOOM 3 was trying to be that revolutionary game that Half-Life 2 was and it didn’t quite make the cut once the dust had settled. Had it released a year or even another three months earlier then it likely would have been a different story entirely.
Whilst the id Tech 4 Engine and everything it can do is at the forefront of everything DOOM 3 does, that’s not to say that shooting demons has been entirely forgotten about. DOOM 3 is a meaty game, with an average playthrough lasting around twelve hours (and my playthrough coming in at an extremely speedy seven and a half which netted me a shiny gold PSN trophy) and for that entire time you’re going to be blasting demons any which way you can. Whilst the mood has changed from old DOOM the gameplay loop has not which places DOOM 3 in a weird flux between the old and the new. The id Tech 4 Engine demands you play the game slowly, strategically choosing between seeing where you’re going and defending yourself. But the structure of the environment, enemy spawns, weapon handling, and even movement mechanics dictate that you must move fast, move often, and rarely stop shooting. If you do, even for a moment, you’ll run afoul of a monster that spawned in the shadows behind you, or some projectile from a platform high above. The opening two hours of DOOM 3 were truly incredible, seeing everything the id Tech 4 Engine was capable of, combined with the gradual introduction to new weapons and enemy types was fantastic. But after the first couple of hours, before you’ve even faced off against your first boss, the gameplay loop becomes stagnant and the environments increasingly cramped and overly stuffed with powerful foes. It became a chore for me to move through this middle portion, but I wanted to see what the later levels had in store for me once I reached Hell. Hell itself only lasts a brief time, I was in and out in less and half an hour, but the return from hell restructures the Mars facility in interesting ways, and this is where the game started to get fun again. You have all the weapons, you know all the enemies, now go ham. In my seven and a half hours, I had probably three and a half truly great ones, with four that were so tedious I almost gave up. The game also felt considerably longer than it was, despite finishing the game in less than ten hours it took almost a month for me to get through, with each time I played the game feeling like it was probably an hour longer than it actually was. As I have already said, I did enjoy some of that time, but that didn’t stop it from feeling elongated. DOOM 3 is poorly paced, and I find myself in the peculiar position of saying that it should have been considerably shorter…which is weird because it took me around the same amount of time as a Call of Duty or Halo campaign. But this is why it’s most evident that gameplay was not the most important factor in DOOM 3’s development, because I expect had gameplay been given priority then a lot of the games middle would have gone under some major restructuring.
Before I close off this review, I want to talk about DOOM 3’s expansion packs. The first of which is 2005’s Resurrection of Evil, developed by Nerve Software. Resurrection of Evil picks up two years after the events of the main game where the UAC has decided to return to Mars following strange signal readings. On arrival you, a new nameless marine, discover an ancient Artefact at the source of the signal. Touching it unleashes the forces of Hell once more, and you must battle your way from the lower levels of the facility all the way up to the top in order to escape.
It’s quite literally a more condensed version of DOOM 3’s main campaign but in reverse. Rather than descending through the Mars facility to discover the source of the problem, you are the source of the problem and must fight your way out. With the game being an expansion pack, it’s considerably shorter coming in at around four hours. This improves the pacing massively and means that the gameplay is pretty much all killer, no filler. It also assumes you have played the base DOOM 3 game and so gives you the majority of the weapons right off the bat and has you facing off against some of the most powerful enemies the expansion will throw at you in just over an hour. From here things just start to go a little crazy with the gameplay becoming considerably more reminiscent of the original two DOOM titles. The slightly larger environments become more like mini arenas for you to face off against multiple types of enemy at any one time, and this works in tandem with the keep moving mentality which the level design of the base game often conflicted with. You’ll also return to Hell in a considerably lengthier sequence than the main game, and one I feel puts the new environments to much better use.
But beyond a couple of new enemy types and the re-introduction of DOOM 2’s super-shotgun the gameplay changes are mostly negligible…or are they? There are two new gimmicks introduced in Resurrection of Evil, the aforementioned Artefact and a new weapon called ‘The Grabber’. The Grabber is nothing more than a completely shameless rip-off of the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, according to id the gun was always supposed to be in the base game however it was removed because they didn’t find enough of a use for it. So, its inclusion in Resurrection of Evil does feel somewhat like a poor imitation of what Valve achieved than something that should have always been there. I barely ever used it beyond the one boss fight that requires it and I can’t imagine that many players will feel the need to use it. The Artefact meanwhile is another straight up rip-of of Max Payne’s bullet-time. Again, I rarely found myself using this, but it did come in handy for when things got busy in the late game. The Artefact in particular is used as a gimmick with some levels requiring you to slow down time to pass by fast moving objects without getting killed. These moments do drag Resurrection of Evil down, but overall, I had a good time with this expansion.
The second expansion, Lost Mission, which is only available with the BFG Edition of DOOM 3, is a total write off though. It truly is a relic of a bygone era and one that should have been forgotten. Acting as a parallel story to the original campaign, Lost Mission is a two-hour jaunt through what feels like an early version of DOOM 3. It lacks almost all the interesting features from the id Tech 4 Engine (including the dramatic lighting effects), the story is totally pointless, and the gameplay feels almost identical to the original DOOM games with little of what made DOOM 3 feel fresh present. All of the environments are ripped directly from the base game or Resurrection of Evil, but they’ve been so overstuffed with enemies and supplies that you quite literally can just keep running and gunning for the entire two hours without hesitation. You’re under attack all the time from every possible direction and you never get a moment to stop and take in what’s happening. It was all over in the amount of time it took for my washing machine to do a wash cycle, and it took even less time for me to promptly forget basically anything about it beyond how dull the entire thing was. To think, this is the extra content they were pushing hard to try and sell copies of the BFG Edition when it launched in 2012, is this really the best id could muster?
When playing on the PS4, DOOM 3 also supports VR. Whilst I can't personally comment on this particular reinvention of the game as I haven't played it, the general consensus seems to be that it's perfectly fine but nothing worth going out of your way to experience. What surprises me most is that id and Bethesda felt as though DOOM 3 was still relevant enough in 2021 to release a VR update to the game, rather than doing it for either DOOM (2016) or DOOM Eternal. Perhaps the slower pace of DOOM 3 was a better fit for VR than the adrenaline fuelled reboot games, but it's nice to see the game hasn't been totally forgotten by id even all these years later.
It’s quite literally a more condensed version of DOOM 3’s main campaign but in reverse. Rather than descending through the Mars facility to discover the source of the problem, you are the source of the problem and must fight your way out. With the game being an expansion pack, it’s considerably shorter coming in at around four hours. This improves the pacing massively and means that the gameplay is pretty much all killer, no filler. It also assumes you have played the base DOOM 3 game and so gives you the majority of the weapons right off the bat and has you facing off against some of the most powerful enemies the expansion will throw at you in just over an hour. From here things just start to go a little crazy with the gameplay becoming considerably more reminiscent of the original two DOOM titles. The slightly larger environments become more like mini arenas for you to face off against multiple types of enemy at any one time, and this works in tandem with the keep moving mentality which the level design of the base game often conflicted with. You’ll also return to Hell in a considerably lengthier sequence than the main game, and one I feel puts the new environments to much better use.
But beyond a couple of new enemy types and the re-introduction of DOOM 2’s super-shotgun the gameplay changes are mostly negligible…or are they? There are two new gimmicks introduced in Resurrection of Evil, the aforementioned Artefact and a new weapon called ‘The Grabber’. The Grabber is nothing more than a completely shameless rip-off of the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, according to id the gun was always supposed to be in the base game however it was removed because they didn’t find enough of a use for it. So, its inclusion in Resurrection of Evil does feel somewhat like a poor imitation of what Valve achieved than something that should have always been there. I barely ever used it beyond the one boss fight that requires it and I can’t imagine that many players will feel the need to use it. The Artefact meanwhile is another straight up rip-of of Max Payne’s bullet-time. Again, I rarely found myself using this, but it did come in handy for when things got busy in the late game. The Artefact in particular is used as a gimmick with some levels requiring you to slow down time to pass by fast moving objects without getting killed. These moments do drag Resurrection of Evil down, but overall, I had a good time with this expansion.
The second expansion, Lost Mission, which is only available with the BFG Edition of DOOM 3, is a total write off though. It truly is a relic of a bygone era and one that should have been forgotten. Acting as a parallel story to the original campaign, Lost Mission is a two-hour jaunt through what feels like an early version of DOOM 3. It lacks almost all the interesting features from the id Tech 4 Engine (including the dramatic lighting effects), the story is totally pointless, and the gameplay feels almost identical to the original DOOM games with little of what made DOOM 3 feel fresh present. All of the environments are ripped directly from the base game or Resurrection of Evil, but they’ve been so overstuffed with enemies and supplies that you quite literally can just keep running and gunning for the entire two hours without hesitation. You’re under attack all the time from every possible direction and you never get a moment to stop and take in what’s happening. It was all over in the amount of time it took for my washing machine to do a wash cycle, and it took even less time for me to promptly forget basically anything about it beyond how dull the entire thing was. To think, this is the extra content they were pushing hard to try and sell copies of the BFG Edition when it launched in 2012, is this really the best id could muster?
When playing on the PS4, DOOM 3 also supports VR. Whilst I can't personally comment on this particular reinvention of the game as I haven't played it, the general consensus seems to be that it's perfectly fine but nothing worth going out of your way to experience. What surprises me most is that id and Bethesda felt as though DOOM 3 was still relevant enough in 2021 to release a VR update to the game, rather than doing it for either DOOM (2016) or DOOM Eternal. Perhaps the slower pace of DOOM 3 was a better fit for VR than the adrenaline fuelled reboot games, but it's nice to see the game hasn't been totally forgotten by id even all these years later.
Did I enjoy my time with DOOM 3? Absolutely, and I’m very happy that I finally got around to playing it after all these years. It’s kind of ironic to me that considering how long it took for a fourth DOOM game to materialise, a full twelve years after DOOM 3, that it’s only been since the arrival of that game that DOOM 3 has been given the credit it always deserved; as a game that took the DOOM formula into the twenty-first century kicking and screaming to try out some new things, not all of which worked. DOOM 2016 returned to a more arcadey style and was critically acclaimed in its own right, but DOOM 3 stands as a kind of oddity between this new DOOM we see today, and old DOOM of the 90’s. I feel it’s a mixture of the world not being ready for DOOM 3 at the time of its release, as well as DOOM 3 not being quite ready for the world. It had these ideas of how to be technologically impressive but without bringing with it what people truly loved about DOOM’s 1&2. That’s not to say that DOOM 3 was a bad game, or even a bad DOOM game, it was just different, but it wasn’t different enough to allow it to stand out against the crowd when compared to something like Half-Life 2.
I’d say if you do seek out DOOM 3 then it’s probably worth seeking out Resurrection of Evil too. What it lacks in a big budget it makes up for in big fun by not taking itself as seriously as the base game and just letting you go wild with some truly great combat encounters. But Lost Mission can be entirely forgotten about, the only reason I can possibly imagine anyone might want to play it is to say, like myself, they’ve played all that DOOM 3 had to offer. But Lost Mission is a disappointing footnote to the legacy of DOOM 3, and to be perfectly honest it’s best left lost.
I do feel like DOOM 3 is a game that people who love games, particularly shooters, should go back and play. It’s not perfect, but I feel they’re the best games to go back to because only now with time can we truly understand what went wrong. I doubt I’ll ever play DOOM 3 again, but I’m incredibly glad I did, and I feel like I truly learned something when playing it. Perhaps its time to dust off that old copy you have laying about, or pick up a cheap second-hand copy and take a look for yourself, because even after all these years DOOM 3 is a flawed masterpiece that deserves attention.
I’d say if you do seek out DOOM 3 then it’s probably worth seeking out Resurrection of Evil too. What it lacks in a big budget it makes up for in big fun by not taking itself as seriously as the base game and just letting you go wild with some truly great combat encounters. But Lost Mission can be entirely forgotten about, the only reason I can possibly imagine anyone might want to play it is to say, like myself, they’ve played all that DOOM 3 had to offer. But Lost Mission is a disappointing footnote to the legacy of DOOM 3, and to be perfectly honest it’s best left lost.
I do feel like DOOM 3 is a game that people who love games, particularly shooters, should go back and play. It’s not perfect, but I feel they’re the best games to go back to because only now with time can we truly understand what went wrong. I doubt I’ll ever play DOOM 3 again, but I’m incredibly glad I did, and I feel like I truly learned something when playing it. Perhaps its time to dust off that old copy you have laying about, or pick up a cheap second-hand copy and take a look for yourself, because even after all these years DOOM 3 is a flawed masterpiece that deserves attention.